Elie is currently on a five-week speaking tour across Canada, visiting over twenty towns and cities. Derrick Oâ€™Keefe, co-editor of Seven Oaks, recently interviewed Elie by telephone.

Derrick Oâ€™Keefe: Patrick, your visit to Canada was delayed as a result of events in Haiti. And then when you did arrive here you were subjected to rough treatment. Could you explain what happened?

Patrick Elie: I was scheduled to come to Canada on February 14. But, what happened was, with the election and the attempted fraud that followed, the people of Haiti took to the streets and voted with their feet after having voted with their ballots. And, as a consequence, Air Canada cancelled its weekly flight to Port-au-Prince. So I had to start the tour one week late.

I left on February 21 and arrived in Montreal in time for an event at Concordia University. But when I got to Customs I was detained and searched. All my papers were examined â€“ Iâ€™m talking about personal papers, and notes, agenda and everything. These were even taken away from me. I insisted on being present when they were going to examine these papers, but they refused. I had a TV camera and they insisted on viewing the film that was in it. They took my laptop. All kinds of stupidity. And of course they couldnâ€™t have anything against me, so then the supervisor of Customs came and told me I was cleared but now CSIS wanted to talk to me.

Oâ€™Keefe: How long did CSIS take with you and what was their attitude towards you?

Elie: It was an attitude that was not aggressive, I would say. But they wanted to know a bunch of things that were none of their business. They wanted to know who invited me, who my contacts were in Montreal, etc. They also wanted to know where I was staying in Montreal and what was my phone number. I said itâ€™s none of your business. They also, and this is even more interesting, asked me about the content of my private conversations with President Aristide since his exile. So after about a half an hour I told them, â€˜Iâ€™m tired of this, Iâ€™m already late. So unless youâ€™re going to arrest me Iâ€™m going.â€™ So I just picked up my luggage and I left.

But because of this I missed my event at Concordia, because I was only able to clear the airport at 10p.m. Fortunately, the next morning we had a press conference in Montreal that was quite well covered.

And when you canâ€™t derail or sabotage an election upstream, then what you do is go downstream. After Aristide was first elected in 1990, they went downstream and did the coup. I supposed a coup was not yet in the plans this time, so they went downstream and started tweaking the results. For me, there were two victories by the Haitian people. The first was that swift maneuver around the trap that was this election by coming out in droves to vote on February 7. But even more significant, and more beautiful in my view, was the coming out on February 13 to really state their decision that their vote was not going to be stolen. I think this was even a greater proof of the determination and political savvy of the Haitian people.

Oâ€™Keefe: What do you foresee in terms of the results of the National Assembly elections?

Oâ€™Keefe: You mentioned the issue of a new Prime Minister. What happens now to the Lavalas political prisoners, including Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Is there any chance that he will be released in the near future given the election results?

Oâ€™Keefe: You are doing an extensive tour of Canada. What is your main message to the people here, and do you see any opening for a real change in Canadian policy towards Haiti?

Elie: There is always a possibility when you have a change in government, but that will only remain a potential for change if the Canadian people donâ€™t step in and say â€˜we donâ€™t want our tax money to be used against another peopleâ€™. And for that to happen, Canadians have to be informed about the real situation, about the real Haiti and the real Haitian people, who have been so misrepresented by the mainstream press and also by the so-called experts on Haiti, who have been proven wrong over and over again by the Haitian people. Reality flies in their face, and yet on CBC and Radio Canada, they are always the ones being given the microphone, when they are completely incompetent and have been proven so by the last election. So, as they are the ones presenting Haiti to Canadians, itâ€™s no wonder that either Canadians are indifferent to Haiti or even hostile to the Haitian people. And that allows for the kind of misguided policy that Canada has applied in Haiti over the past five years.

Oâ€™Keefe: As minister in Haiti democratic government in the 1990s, you played a historic role in dismantling the notoriously repressive Haitian army that was associated so many dictatorships.

Elie: Itâ€™s something I did out of necessity. I am a chemist by trade, I have a PhD in organic chemistry. But my country needed me. It needed me in the most difficult jobs, which were the fight against drug trafficking, and then after that in trying to dismantle the state security apparatus, the army, and set up a new police. It had to be done. I had no formal training, but thatâ€™s the way it is. When you have to learn on the job you learn on the job, and you do the best that you can, and thatâ€™s what I did.

Oâ€™Keefe: I donâ€™t know what your relationship is with the president-elect, but do you see yourself ever again taking on government-level responsibilities in Haiti?